The Good Life Society

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The Good Life Society Intimate events, experiences, workshops and holiday accommodation designed to bring you joy. And now we have our All Day Feasts, too.

We run intimate events focusing on the great outdoors, community, food, craft, culture and music in incredible locations on two of Britain’s most beautiful private estates. Each of our events aims to be the most friendly and inspiring anywhere. Currently we run Camp Good Life which is a small festival for under 1000 guests on the storied Hawarden Estate in North Wales. We also have Summer Camp, wh

ich is an annual event, running across four long weekends, for up to 100 guests on the Hawarden Estate. Our first ever one-day events, hosted within the storied Walled Garden of Hawarden Castle. We also run Camp Glen Dye, an occasional event for around 30 guests on the Glen Dye Estate in Kincardineshire, Scotland.

“One of the UK’s best summer camps for kids.” - After a smash hit inaugural weekend in 2024, the Family Weekend at Summe...
23/06/2025

“One of the UK’s best summer camps for kids.” -

After a smash hit inaugural weekend in 2024, the Family Weekend at Summer Camp returns this summer!

Come and meet the expert craftspeople, chefs, speakers and musicians who will join you within The Walled Garden on Hawarden Estate in late July.

With over 90% of tickets already sold, now is a great time to explore this weekend of hands-on workshops, fire-cooked feasts, wellness and freedom for all.

📆 25-28th July 2025
🎟️ Day & weekend tickets available
🎪 Accommodation very limited

Summer Camp is dog-friendly! 💛We’ve hosted dog-friendly festivals, large and small, over the past decade. And we can hap...
21/06/2025

Summer Camp is dog-friendly! 💛

We’ve hosted dog-friendly festivals, large and small, over the past decade. And we can happily confirm that life, and festivals, are better with dogs involved.

📸
➡️ Scroll for the line-ups
🎟️ Tickets available now
⏳ Over 90% already sold!

📣 Final call🧘‍♀️ The Outdoors, Wellness & Adventure Weekend at Summer Camp📆 1st - 4th August 2025Swim among the lily pad...
19/06/2025

📣 Final call
🧘‍♀️ The Outdoors, Wellness & Adventure Weekend at Summer Camp
📆 1st - 4th August 2025

Swim among the lily pads in our private nature reserve.

Here’s what you need to know:
📈 Over 90% of tickets have sold.
🎪 On-site accommodation is scarce.
🏕️ Further camping pitches available at campsite.
 🎟️ Final Day & Weekend Tickets available now.

🗣️ “The ideal spot to unwind and reconnect with nature.” -

SUMMER CAMP DAY TICKETS. 🌞 Now available. All tickets include dinner cooked over the fire, plus full access to Summer Ca...
17/06/2025

SUMMER CAMP DAY TICKETS. 🌞 Now available.

All tickets include dinner cooked over the fire, plus full access to Summer Camp including: workshops, lake swimming, paddle boarding, yoga, talks, music, a sauna and hot tub, luxury facilities, access to acres of private parkland, parking and much more.

🎟️
Adults (16+) - £155
Children (5-15) - £99
Children (0-4) - FREE

🗓️
🧵 The Craft Weekend - 18th - 21st July
🧒 Family Weekend - 25th - 28th July
🌲 Outdoor & Wellness Weekend - 1st - 4th August

Book now via our website. 💛

📣 Final call🚸 The Family Weekend at Summer Camp📆 25th - 28th July 2025You’ll take away memories, skills, friendships and...
17/06/2025

📣 Final call
🚸 The Family Weekend at Summer Camp
📆 25th - 28th July 2025

You’ll take away memories, skills, friendships and positivity to last a lifetime.

Here’s what you need to know:
📈 Over 90% of tickets have sold.
🎪 On-site accommodation is scarce.
🏕️ Further camping pitches available at campsite.
 🎟️ Final Day & Weekend Tickets available now.

🗣️ “One of the UK’s best Summer Camps for kids” -

🗣️  “I’m struggling to get back in the real world after the most perfect weekend. The mental load was lifted due to organised fun and not having to cook was so precious. Families were looking out for each other, it had the whole village to raise a child vibe. Without the worry of traffic we could allow our children more independence.” - Hannah C, Guest.

“I don’t need a shower. Mum, I promise. I had a wash in the lake!” - Overheard during a morning craft workshop.

📣 Final call⚒️ The Craft Weekend at Summer Camp📆 18th - 21st July 2025It’s time to get off the fence and decide if you’l...
15/06/2025

📣 Final call
⚒️ The Craft Weekend at Summer Camp
📆 18th - 21st July 2025

It’s time to get off the fence and decide if you’ll be heading to Summer Camp this year!

Here’s what you need to know:
📈 Over 90% of tickets have sold.
🎪 On-site accommodation is scarce.
🏕️ Further camping pitches available at campsite.
 🎟️ Final Day & Weekend Tickets available now.

🗣️ “At the end of a day spent swimming past lily pads, carving a cack-handed spoon and singing really shockingly with much more gifted strangers, I found myself feeling better than I had in over a year.

It’s wellness without the trite hashtags.

And I love it.”
for

Morning qigong at Hawarden Old Castle with . Simon –of – is a nature coach helping people reconnect with themselves, eac...
13/06/2025

Morning qigong at Hawarden Old Castle with .

Simon –of – is a nature coach helping people reconnect with themselves, each other, and the natural world. He blends movement, breathwork, mindfulness, and coaching to create grounded, restorative group experiences.

His work is rooted in training across qigong, breathwork, coaching, and nature connection, and he is also a Fellow of the Bio Leadership Project.

At Summer Camp, Simon invites you to explore the wisdom and nature of the season through mind, body, and community. ‘Qi’ (energy) and ‘Gong’ (work or skill) is a practice that cultivates vitality within. 

Traditional Chinese Medicine teaches that stagnation -physical, mental, or emotional- underlies illness. By fostering flow in the body, we create flow in life. Through mindful movement, breathwork, and conversation, these sessions offer a chance to reconnect to yourself, others, and the world we steward.

No gym kit, yoga mat, or fitness level required. Just come as you are, leave your shoes at the (castle) ‘door’, and be ready to find the flow.

Simon will join us each morning at our Summer Camp Family Weekend in July!

🎟️ Over 90% of all tickets have sold
➡️ Take a look at the line-up

Call Out for a Film Maker. 📣 🎥 We’re looking for someone to make a series of short films of this year’s Summer Camp and ...
12/06/2025

Call Out for a Film Maker. 📣 🎥

We’re looking for someone to make a series of short films of this year’s Summer Camp and the only really important criteria is that the work must be super creative and original. We want something that’s different. I suppose you could put it like this; whatever you do, just don’t copy anyone else.

Summer Camp is a magical place, but when we were chatting about it yesterday, we all agreed that we haven’t yet managed to do it justice on film. Almost anyone can capture what exists on the surface with a camera; people having a lovely time, a superb location, chefs, makers, sun, food, drink, music.
But capturing the magic beneath the surface is harder; we want to show the love, the originality, the spirit. We want to show what Summer Camp does to people, how it transports them, changes things. We want to show what people take away with them.

We are thinking that this might suit someone at the beginning of their career, but we are not set on this. It’s also worth mentioning that we would like a series of complete films delivered as well as the provision of all raw video footage, which we may use to create content in the future.

If this is of any interest, please fill out the Google form in our bio with a link to your showreel, your most recent piece of work and info about where you are based.

We have budget, we have a great event, you will be looked after properly.

Please tag great people and share far and wide. 💛

Call Out for a Film Maker. 📣 🎥 We’re looking for someone to make a series of short films of this year’s Summer Camp and ...
12/06/2025

Call Out for a Film Maker. 📣 🎥

We’re looking for someone to make a series of short films of this year’s Summer Camp and the only really important criteria is that the work must be super creative and original. We want something that’s different. I suppose you could put it like this; whatever you do, just don’t copy anyone else.

Summer Camp is a magical place, but when we were chatting about it yesterday, we all agreed that we haven’t yet managed to do it justice on film. Almost anyone can capture what exists on the surface with a camera; people having a lovely time, a superb location, chefs, makers, sun, food, drink, music.
But capturing the magic beneath the surface is harder; we want to show the love, the originality, the spirit. We want to show what Summer Camp does to people, how it transports them, changes things. We want to show what people take away with them.

We are thinking that this might suit someone at the beginning of their career, but we are not set on this. It’s also worth mentioning that we would like a series of complete films delivered as well as the provision of all video footage, which we may use to create content in the future.

If this is of any interest, please fill out the Google form in our bio with a link to your showreel / your most recent piece of work and info about where you are based.

We have budget, we have a great event, you will be looked after properly.

Please tag great people and share far and wide. 💛

Cecil Beaton and Summer Camp 👒A stone’s throw from The Walled Garden, at the heart of Hawarden Estate, a new exhibition ...
11/06/2025

Cecil Beaton and Summer Camp 👒

A stone’s throw from The Walled Garden, at the heart of Hawarden Estate, a new exhibition has just opened celebrating the life and works of Cecil Beaton.

“Cecil Beaton was my great uncle.

His sister was my grandmother, Baba, his muse and the subject of thousands of his photographs, paintings and more. Cecil spent a lot of time at Hawarden and also regularly photographed my family and me.

I admired him hugely and he was always kind and supportive. He was an important influence on me from a young age.” - Charlie Gladstone

Cecil was a pre-eminent British figure and his work straddled design, photography, painting and writing.

He won three Oscars, many Tonys, and was the official photographer of the late Queen’s coronation; he was a celebrated diarist, painter, interior designer and much more.

This year there are two major exhibitions of his work in London, one at the and one at the .

Our exhibition in Hawarden makes no claim to match the might of these august institutions. Instead, we are taking a gentle and intimate look at the family life of an important public figure, showing hundreds and hundreds of photographs of and by Cecil that have never been shown in public before.

In addition to these, we’re showing paintings, sketches, letters, scrapbooks and more.

“We are immensely proud to be associated with Cecil, and we believe that and would not be what they are without his influence on me and, in a wider and more abstract sense, on Hawarden.” - Charlie Gladstone

The exhibition will be open for Summer Camp weekend ticket holders each Friday afternoon.

Over 85% of all tickets to Summer Camp have now sold 🎟️Time to take a look at the line-up ➡️Choose your favourite weeken...
09/06/2025

Over 85% of all tickets to Summer Camp have now sold 🎟️

Time to take a look at the line-up ➡️

Choose your favourite weekend before it’s too late! ⏳

Summer Camp day tickets are here! 🎟️Head to Hawarden Estate’s Walled Garden from 7am-10:30pm on the Saturday or Sunday o...
07/06/2025

Summer Camp day tickets are here! 🎟️

Head to Hawarden Estate’s Walled Garden from 7am-10:30pm on the Saturday or Sunday of your choice:

Saturday 19th July | Sunday 20th July
Saturday 26th July | Sunday 27th July
Saturday 2nd August | Sunday 3rd August

Your ticket includes an evening feast, with great guest chefs cooking on Saturday nights and the award-winning Hawarden Estate team cooking over fire on Sunday nights.

PLUS: all craft workshops, wild swimming, paddle boarding, yoga, talks, unlimited access to our wood-fired sauna and hot tub and the room to roam the historic Hawarden Estate.

This is the perfect ticket for locals or those who want to stay offsite nearby.

To extend your stay in Hawarden, book a pitch at our Farm Shop Campsite or book full weekend tickets.

📝 Find the full schedule online.
🎟️ Tickets available now!
⌛️ Over 85% already sold!

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Our Story

THE GOOD LIFE EXPERIENCE 29 APRIL - 2 MAY 2021 HAWARDEN ESTATE, FLINTSHIRE A festival of discovery and adventure.

Now in its seventh year, The Good Life Experience on the Hawarden Estate, Flintshire is absolutely unique. Founded by four friends –Cerys Matthews MBE, Steve Abbott and Charlie and Caroline Gladstone- if it fits in with their idea of The Good Life, it features at the festival. Expect to pitch your tent in the shadow of two castles, great locally produced food, axe throwing, foraging, campfire cooking, mass sing-a-longs, over 40 expert craftspeople, comedy, beer served by experts, talks by explorers, a canine circus, raucous music, abseiling, a free 1930s fairground, tree climbing, butchery displays, poetry, literature and endless How To… talks. And everything is aimed at adults and children alike; there aren’t many festivals that truly do that. 29 APRIL - 2 MAY 2021 Tickets on sale now. Dogs welcome. 15 minutes from Chester.

Come & explore: www.thegoodlifeexperience.co.uk